Queens at the Fillmore: It's been too long

Pablo Ordonez, Miami Lakes Educational Center

Queens of the Stone Age is perhaps the definitive rock band of the 2000s. After a near-12-year hiatus from touring in Miami, Queens returned to the Fillmore on Feb. 5, 2014 — making a marked re-entrance into the South Florida rock scene.

Opening for Queens was Chelsea Wolfe, a Californian singer-songwriter characterized by her deep riffs and gothic vocals. Particularly talented at intertwining folk and drone influences, Wolfe was phenomenal at making her guitar sing with angst—an expression of genuine emotion. Her performance was at times too dark -- not that it was bad, but her tone just wasn’t in line with what was expected at a Queens of the Stone Age concert. Queens is exciting and loud, not gloomy or gothic, and the contrast was at first confusing.

But after the concert was finished, it made perfect sense -- Wolfe's black tones made the Queens performance all the more exciting.

Queens of the Stone Age opened with "You Think I Ain’t Worth a Dollar, but I Feel Like a Millionaire," a song from "Songs for the Deaf" — a well-placed nod to seasoned fans. Although their new album "…Like Clockwork" has been recently released and critically acclaimed, the concert was a perfect mix between old and new.

After many of their most livid songs, frontman Josh Homme switched from guitar to piano for “The Vampyre of Time and Memory,” one of Queens’s most soft and heartfelt songs. Homme’s voice was brilliantly genuine, and the audience expressed their assent by waving their customary lit lighters on beat.

Queens played practically every song from "Clockwork," most remarkably “My God is the Sun,” “Fairweather Friends,” “If I Had a Tail,” “Kalopsia,” and “I Sat By the Ocean.” Homme’s vocals were on point, and Jon Theodore—the band’s drummer for the tour—was particularly masterful.

Drawing their performance to a close, Queens of the Stone Age played “I Appear Missing,” perhaps the darkest song on "Clockwork." As they played, the music video ran in the background—a man floating through a barren wasteland, eventually tumbling down to a bloody end.

All in all, Queens of the Stone Age played a memorable concert, and we can expect the band to visit Miami more often, as promised by the band. In the words of Josh Homme, “It’s been too long.”